Cocinas Alterinas (Alter-kitchens) explores the endless possibilities of kitchens as spaces of care, resilience and resistance. We propose to reclaim, repurpose and reimagine the 'modular kitchen' (mass production industrial type) around four elements heat, liquid, labour, and food. We plan this as a hybrid communal process, meaning digital and analogue workshops with local and global communities.
Authors: Gabriela Aquije & Mayar El Barkry
This video aims to recount the project of Cocinas Alterinas, based on the dialogue and cultural empathy between two diasporic voices from Peru and Egypt. The video begins with the state of our long-distant collaboration, two geographies bounded by a common interest: food as a means to design otherwise. Then the description of the project is broken down into 4 scenes encompassing in-between hybrid scenarios for sourcing, cooking and eating together between Dessau and Zurich. Surpassing the pandemic context, we developed the act of kitchening and critical commensality as caring design methods to reclaim, repurpose and reimagine the current modular kitchen. Care to join us?
Directed, written and edited by Mayar El Bakry and Gabriela Aquije
Cast: Gabriela Aquije & Mayar El Barkry
Screenplay consultancy: Maya Ober, Ngoc Trieu, Aida Herrera
Dessau Camera and Filming crew: Gabriela Aquije, Julia Mendrok and Otto Gloeckner
Zurich Camera and Filming Crew: Mayar El Bakry and Lazy Lennon
Sound Editor: Mayar El Bakry
Special Thanks to: Bereket Market, turkish family-owned business
Copyright content: Image 1 (Heat): “Behind the scenes of the French Chef”, 1963. Provided by the Schlesinger Library / Image 2 (Water): “C.J. Williams drinks from a White only water fountain” 1964. Photography by Cecil J. Williams / Image 3 (Food): “Simplify your life”. Photography by Luis Pilares / Image 4 (Labor): “Uygur cooks make noodles in Kashgar, China”, 1989. Photography A. Abbas
All videos and images for illustrative purposes only.
Location: Dessau, Germany & Zurich, Switzerland
Mayar El Bakry is a Swiss-Egyptian designer based in Zurich. Currently, she’s focusing on food and cooking as a means to create spaces of discourses, exchange and communal reflection.
Gabriela Aquije is a Peruvian Architect and Design researcher from Lima, Peru, currently based in Germany. Through a critical space practice, she designs within the public realm, its actors, cultural material, and infrastructures.
